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September 22, 2010

Just a Little Off the Side

Evelyn Mervine, a graduate student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, uses a power saw to cut a sample of carbonate rock she collected from an ophiolite in Oman. Ophiolites are geologic formations created when oceanic crust is uplifted and exposed to the air. Mervine is studying the way minerals in ophiolites combine with atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), removing the gas from the air to form carbonates. If the process can be enhanced, it might offer the possibility of reducing climate change by converting large amounts of atmospheric CO2 to a stable mineral form. (Photo by Katherine Joyce, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)